This may be my favorite Christmas song, and it’s almost entirely devoid of all the cliches that have built up around the genre (There are sleigh bells in the mix here, but that’s about it). Instead, it’s just a song about what Christmas originated as, performed in a sly but sincere way. There’s little as fun about Christmas music as when Alex Chilton drawls “And we’re gonna get born now.”

It’s a Christmas classic, but one that – let’s be honest – sounds pretty scary with all the kids singing like that. What is it about children singing en masse that sounds so sinister? Here, let’s go jazzy with it, instead:

Another of those songs that you hear so much in childhood that they sound eternal, as if they’ve always existed. Nat King Cole’s version in particular. The Nat King Cole Christmas album was something that my mother adored; she’d make a point of putting it on as we decorated the tree, if possible, to try and complete the experience for her.

Children and adults participate in a Santa Claus parade organized by the Town Hall of Famalicao, an initiative that marks the end of the European year for Active Ageing and intergenerational solidarity in 2012, in Famalicao, northern Portugal, 21 December 2012. EPA/ESTELA SILVA